Footage taken on November 16 from inside the former detention centre on Manus Island showed squalid conditions and refugees appealing for urgent medical treatment for those suffering from illness. The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, a major refugee support organisation in Australia, gained access to the former detention centre where up to 420 were refusing to leave after its closure on over two weeks earlier. Footage and interviews taken by the ASRC showed deteriorating conditions inside the compound, with many of the men languishing without adequate drinking water, plumbing, food or medical supplies. The ASRC said as many as 150 men were suffering from untreated chest pains, kidney stones, infected cuts, ear and eye infections, skin rashes, diarrhoea, skin abscesses and an array of mental health problems, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. Members of the Australian Medical Association on Saturday unanimously called for the government to allow independent doctors and health experts access to the centre, The Guardian reported. Papua New Guinea authorities have blocked access to the centre and continued to dismantle shelters and make-shift water storage tanks at the facility. Credit: Asylum Seeker Resource Centre via Storyful

November 21st 2017

4 months ago

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Manus Island, asylum seekers have held large protests and demanding to be able to stay at the “hellhole” regional processing centre.Source:Supplied

THE situation for hundreds of asylum seekers stranded on a Papua New Guinea island is getting worse every day, a UN refugee official says, urging Australia to resume its responsibility for them.

Australia closed the offshore detention centre on Manus Island at the end of October, but some 380 refugees and asylum seekers have refused to leave, citing safety fears outside the centre’s walls.

“The situation on the ground is very serious and deteriorating day by day,” said Nai Jit Lam, a regional representative of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Tuesday.

Asylum seekers on Manus Island have been using bins to catch rain water to drink after Australian immigration officials destroyed water supplies. Picture: Brian CasseySource:News Corp Australia

Lam said medicines ran out last week, their health is suffering in the hot and humid weather, and they have started digging wells inside the centre to get water.

The 250 others who have moved out of the centre face an apprehensive local population and unfinished alternative housing on the island, Lam said, adding that the migrants do not speak the local language.

Hundreds of people marched in support of Manus Island refugees in Sydney. Picture: AAPSource:AAP

“Australia must continue to take responsibility and play an active role in achieving solutions,” Lam said.

The United Nations had long criticised the living conditions on Australia’s offshore migrant centres, while the government argued that they deter people smugglers.

Last year, Papua New Guinea’s Supreme Court ruled the Manus camp illegal and asked the government to close it.